#but there are two options and one of them is fucking donald trump
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Nessie, what are your thoughts on Joe Biden VS Donald Trump, as well as the 2024 election as a whole?
I’ve said this a thousand times before, but choosing between Biden and Trump is like choosing whether to microwave a baby or bake it in the oven. I voted for Biden the first time but only because the alternative was Donald fucking Trump. I was told he was “the lesser of two evils” and I’m sure he probably still is, but I can’t excuse his involvement in the Palestinian genocide so I won’t be voting for him a second time. The two party system has failed us yet again, which is why I’m voting socialist in this election instead. I know Claudia and Karina won’t win but I simply refuse to vote for either major candidate, and this way we can hopefully help to normalize voting 3rd party so that one day a 3rd party candidate might have a legitimate chance of winning a major election.
We’ve been alternating between microwaving babies and baking them in the oven for hundreds of years. Everyone thinks that “oh, maybe the microwave won’t kill the baby this time,” and to be fair, sometimes it doesn’t, but they all still seem to think that we need to pick one or the other because that’s the way we’ve always done it. Nobody’s listening to the few people standing in the corner who are suggesting maybe we SHOULDN’T still be cooking the baby or even have been cooking it in the first place, as was intended by the baby’s creators. Literally all it takes is enough people realizing this, and eventually we can stop cooking babies altogether (yes, I know that in reality some of them are basically advocating for deep frying the baby but ignore them, I’m talking about the ones who don’t want to cook it at all).
Allow me to frame it another way: when you get shot, putting pressure on the wound is the best thing to do in that moment, but you can only put pressure on it for so long. You’ll live longer by packing the wound with gauze than if you did nothing, but it’s a very stressful and strained existence. However, if you don’t do anything about it you’ll still bleed out, just more slowly.
On the other hand, you can try to remove the bullet so that you can stitch up the wound. You’ll bleed a lot more in that moment and it’s way harder to stitch up a wound than it is keep changing the bandage, but ultimately you’ll heal. You’re going to have to do it eventually, so you might as well do it before you lose even more blood and before things get even worse. It’s not the quicker or easier option by any means, but it’s the one that leads to the best possible outcome.
Edit: I’ve heard it all before, I promise there’s nothing some stranger on the internet can say that will change my mind. I’m sorry if that upsets you but it’s my constitutional right to vote for who I want
#ask nessie#nessieposting#nessie on drugs#r/196#196#r/196archive#/r/196#rule#meme#memes#shitpost#shitposting#politics#us politics#donald trump#joe biden#claudia and karina 2024#democrats#republicans
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Hi, “tankie" here, and I’m going to be charitable and assume you are well-meaning but ill-informed on your posts. You seem to imply that since American Marxists are critical towards America, they must have neutral-to-positive views on Russia. Not only is this a false dilemma fallacy (acting as if being anti-American and being anti-Russian are the only two, diametrically opposed, options), but is also broadly incorrect. Aside from a few baby Marxists and LARPers, there is a general dislike of the Russian Federation among Marxists due to its leaders (Yeltsin, Putin) being responsible for the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the USSR. However, you may be confusing something else. As Lenin said:
“For the Socialist of another country cannot expose the government and bourgeoisie of a country at war with “his own” nation, and not only because he does not know that country’s language, history, specific features, etc., but also because such exposure is part of imperialist intrigue, and not an internationalist duty.”
As an American Marxist, it really doesn’t matter if I’m the most pro-Russian person in the country or curse Putin’s name. At the end of the day, the effect I have on the political development of Russia is essentially zero. Rather, I have to trust Russian Marxists to be the ones to shepherd their country in the right direction. Conversely, as an American the effect I have on American political development, while still close to zero, is appreciably more than I have on any other country. Thus, it’s my duty to primarily focus my criticisms on the USA, as it is both the country where my words hold the most weight as well as a country I am intimately familiar with. People who don’t understand this reality may choose to take that as being nothing but an ideology of being anti-American, which is clearly incorrect.
Hello, I hope you are having a good day. The problem with your thinking Friend, is that the world has changed since Lenins time...and also Lenin himself was not the best adherent of that principle. We are in a massively interconnected global community now, and international powers are actively getting involved in other people's politics, you can't just separate one state from the rest. For example, the conflict in Syria directly led to the election of donald Trump, these things are connected.
"Aside from a few baby Marxists and LARPers, there is a general dislike of the Russian Federation among Marxists due to its leaders (Yeltsin, Putin) being responsible for the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the USSR."
God I fucking wish this was true, but go through the various Marxists blogs i'm arguing with now, so many of them are echoing a pro Putin line, one created from the Russian Federation's propaganda in regards to Ukraine. And it leads to self described communist supporting a far right reactionary anti communist regime. When the default Marxists-Leninist position on Ukraine is inseparable from Tucker's Carlson's position then there is something rotten in your movement
"At the end of the day, the effect I have on the political development of Russia is essentially zero."
You need to pay more attention to Russian politics friend cause that is really not the case
"Thus, it’s my duty to primarily focus my criticisms on the USA, as it is both the country where my words hold the most weight as well as a country I am intimately familiar with."
Your duty as a Marxists is to fight against fascism don't get yourself limited by state borders because what happens with this attitude friend is that you take the typical American Centric attitude towards other nations of "America good, foreigners bad" and just flip it, you wind up with the same basic attitude though. "America bad, foreigners good" is still just as reductivism and America centric, and honestly as toxic. For example, take the 2014 euromaiden uprising, where millions of Ukrainians rose up against there far right authoritarian government and over threw him, something which Marxists should support (and indeed the communist parties in Ukraine did support). Almost any time I go unto Marxist-Leninist sites, they present this as a CIA backed coup which is just...massively insulting to the agency of Ukrainians, suggesting that they don't have any autonomy of there own but only act as extensions of the US. I see a lot of Tankies viewing the conflict in Ukraine with the same blinders that Americans used to view the Vietnam war, not seeing the conditions on the ground or the historical events that led to this, but only seeing it as a front in the global war between communism and capitalism, which is both reductive and self destructive.
Thanks for the polite response though
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ARC Review: Duke Most Wicked by Lenora Bell
4/5. Releases September 27, 2022.
I'm thinking--boss/employee interclass rake romance, yes?
The Duke of Westbury is in a tight spot. He's gambled away the family fortune (because of his Secret Pain) and ruined his reputation, which has affected the marital prospects of his younger sisters. His only option is to find a rich heiress to marry, clean up his act, and ensure that his sisters have good husbands as soon as possible. Cue Viola, his girls' quiet music teacher, whom West assumes will be able to shepherd them into high society. The problem? Viola has long nursed an unsaid passion for West, which--coupled with his realization that she is in fact QUITE fuckable--could ensure a scandal he won't be able to come back from.
If you've never seen the early 2000s era Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock romcom Two Weeks Notice... I don't know if you should. Parts of it haven't aged well, most of a cameo from Donald Trump (I mean, to be fair, who the fuck could've known). But what I do remember enjoying so much was the "hapless slutty boss/put-upon employee" dynamic. Is it politically correct? Who's to say. Is it fun as hell? Yes.
And to me, Duke Most Wicked gives you that without the horrible Trump cameo. West is something of a clueless rake, and it is delightful. He basically wakes up one day and is like "I have no money and everyone hates me--how did this happen?" When it's really not that hard to think of how this happened. He'll literally put his dukes up and get ready to fight at the slightest provocation, and everyone will be like "huh, weird". He's just hilariously slutty and fun and ridiculous, and I enjoyed him immensely.
Viola is a quieter heroine, in the way that she kind of has to be to contrast with West--but she's also deeply horny. She's been lusting after her boss for quite some time before our story begins, and it is certainly mutual once she comes into focus for him... But he can't act on his feelings, as he's worried about how a boss/employee affair (which can't go anywhere, as he must marry for money) will look and affect his sisters' standing. There's a lot of "I don't want to want you yet I do" in this book, and I was not mad at it. Viola knows that she shouldn't fall for West's seductions... and West knows he shouldn't be seducing her. But--oh well!
What I also found interesting was the presence of female friendship. There's a really cute scene wherein Viola and her friends (all of whom I imagine are past heroines or future heroines--this is my first Lenora Bell, so I'm not sure) sat and giggled and speculated about what the fuck he was doing to her in a prior scene. It was just very wholesome. Nobody made Viola feel bad for "allowing liberties", and no one acted like a total clueless idiot. I loved the sex positivity.
The ending of the book is somewhat convenient and easy, and I wish there would've been a bit more angst on that front... But I can't complain too much. It's a funny, cozy romance that does in fact involve piano sex. Which is like, the promise of the premise. I'll definitely be checking out more from Lenora Bell.
Thanks to Netgalley and Avon for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review!
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I love when americans are like “there's no good choice to vote for, I don't know who I'm voting for”, as though it isn't literally a choice between two real options and one of them is fucking donald trump.
#oh biden does evil things? yeah he's the leader of the evil empire known as the usa#they do evil things#do you understand the concept of lesser evil? or did your education system skip over nuance?#if donald trump is elected a second time then there is genuinely no hope left for you clowns
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An Opening Statement:
When impressing myself into the world of politics as a kid, I always thought I’d be the cool motherfucker that’d band people together to fight against an oppressive government and liberate the minority. And then, I realized that
1. People don’t like to listen to other people
2. It’s really hard to get America to stop being lazy
3. There’s more countries than America out there
That third one is a big one, I’d say, and it defines a lot of what makes the world what it is.
“American Exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is either distinctive, unique, or exemplary compared to other nations.” - Donald E. Pease (I think, that’s what Wikipedia said they got the quote from)
You see, I live in a country that loves to suck it’s own dick, and pass around the fruits of that labour by spreading its seeds of “democracy” and “freedom” onto other countries that did not ask. Now, I love my country, I think US propaganda does a great job of making even the most US hating individual feel proud to love this country, and I do in fact feel wonderful every single day knowing I’m a citizen of the country that loves to spout off how free it is. I’m also not blind, it’s also a damn shame what the country looks like now. Shit, let’s be honest, the American government is an absolute cesspool of old dudes jerking each other off and making fuck tons of money doing it, which, by the way, could very easily be cut to go into our economy, but I digress, the American government is at core the fault of our country, and by god thank you for letting us see that, and giving us the option to vote them out- except we don’t. Because no one votes. And when they do, it’s always “vote blue no matter who” or “trump is the best”, stupid shit like that. The solution? Simple. Hell, let’s cut this whole chapter down to two simple words. “Start. Reading.”. It’s that simple. I mean, we literally have the biggest goddamn treasure trove of information ever held accessible to the common man, and y’all motherfuckers use it to argue whether or not trans people should get rights. They should by the way. Because they’re people. Expanding off that, I’m not saying I’m not guilty of the same stupid shit. My heart strings soar when I see some dumb shit confederate get clowned on online. But none of it means anything. I can talk smack all I want on this earth but it’s not gonna make it any greener. We’re members of a generation capable of making the most change, and we have been given the greatest informative platform to do it on. Stop staring at the next controversy when they made Ariel black; who the fuck cares if they removed a gay character from a show. While y’all weren’t looking, they let Florida allow first responders to legally deny medical care at their own whim, based on their beliefs. Imagine if you pissed some motherfucker off in 8th grade when you snitched on him for passing notes in class, and then 10 years later you go to a specialist, the same guy, and he denies you care because he’s a salty motherfucker, and you DIE. Who let this law pass? Certainly not the citizens of Florida, you guys are fucking awesome, but can’t see the obvious issues here.
We, as citizens of the United States, are held victim by our own beliefs and emotions. We impose our own restrictions on ourselves, by acting like the differences in the world is because one side lives a different kind of life. We draw so much attention to the smallest of differences, the pigment of our skin, who we love, who we want to be, and we miss the big picture. It’s not republicans Vs. democrats, the gays Vs the church or the north Vs the south (god forbid that shit happens again), it’s the fucking people Vs the goddamn government, and it always has been. Every distraction from our common goal of uniting against corruption gives more power to the corrupt, and they fucking LOVE it. And no, this isn’t me saying if you think gay people are inherently evil or some shit that’s ok. It’s not. You’re weird. Weirdo. This is me saying theirs a far larger issue at hand that could kill us all, and both of y’all need to shut the fuck up and look around you.
So yeah. I’m trying to be the cool motherfucker that bands the oppressed together against a common enemy. I wish I could. I’d be lying to myself, and you, if I said something like, “I’ve grown”. I haven’t. I’m no better than the person next to me, no greater than the young child behind me or the older folk in front. We’re all equal in a struggle against power. (And NO this isn’t some Marx shit, the economy is a joke and I’ll get to that later) All I’m saying is, we could do with a lot more loving in this world, because shit, that would make me feel a helluva lot better, and I’m sure you would too.
Remember when I said that thing about American Exceptionalism? Promise I didn’t forget about it while I ranted about America. Because it’s wrong. We aren’t special. We’re one empire in the long line of many, not the first nor the last. The entire world is out there, billions of people, millions of cultures, thousands more being made. Many suffering a helluva lot more than my upper middle class in college ass. Many living a lot more luxurious than I am too. Despite us all being the same species we manage to become so different, global divisions of “countries” and “nations”. I can’t speak of the minds of everyone, because I’m not everyone. I can’t say that every single person should act some way, because I didn’t grow up in their shoes, in their home. Everyone lives different lives, everyone lives differently. So why the hell should my country pretend to know what’s best for them. American “global security” is an authoritarian grip on the less fortunate, for our benefit. And only the people can fix that.
#politics#america#swearing#rant#canijustwriteanythinginthetagsectionandgetawaywithit?immisusingthisfeatureforsure
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The Plan
I live in Jersey City, New Jersey. I am a lifelong scientific progressive. I always disliked the "Party of No" - the Republicans that I saw, growing up and as a young adult, who seemed to reject change out-of-hand while proposing no alternatives.
That's a recipe for failure. A party must have a vision and a party must present solutions to issues that Americans consider pressing, whether or not one personally considers those issues sensible. To say "I see no issue & I have no plan" may be honest but it is not productive.
Such Republicans were bad enough without mentioning their belabored & abused American vein of Christianity. That added a self-superior note which was altogether odious. So I didn't like them. Republicans were (are) bastards.
And then they got worse. They weren't really Christian anymore, but they still had that superior air. They voted for...well, you know who. I didn't laugh. It's not a joke to have one of America's two parties nominating an idiot for spite.
But it is a joke that he won, if a cruel one. In retrospect, Republicans were too incompetent to get very much done. What we all got was an embarrassing lesson in why you don't nominate a fucking joke - he might win. Anything can happen.
The red party no longer has an ideology. They aren't Christian. They aren't conservative. They merely exist moment-to-moment, taking whichever stance Democrats don't. This is not a party which can be trusted to nominate reasonable, serious candidates for office.
And that's serious, because they will continue to provide one of the two real presidential candidates for the foreseeable future. It is disgustingly irresponsible to allow these candidates to be jokes.
What is, then, the responsibility of a progressive? If one trusts the Democratic party to nominate sane & generally sensible individuals - which I do - then one's vote in the Democratic primary matters little. It is far more important to affect the outcome of the Republican primary in any way one can.
And I do think the existence of the Republican party is "valid." There should be a sane alternative - a "loyal opposition" - to ensure that ideas & policies are subject to rigorous debate and analysis. At the moment, we lack that. Points raised by Republicans can simply be discounted, because "Republicans are crazy." At the moment, that's completely sensible. No party that nominated & accepted Donald John Trump as their candidate for President of the United States of America can be taken seriously.
It's especially ironic that a party called "Republican" did such a thing - the notion of "republicanism," as opposed to "democracy," indicating a belief that government decisions should be made at least in part by the competent, the educated, and the elite, rather than entirely by the commons. Yet they did nothing but timidly throw up their hands and say, "What can we do? They voted for him. He won the primaries."
Such a disgusting and cowardly renunciation of responsibility puts an indelible black mark on the record of everyone who had the power to intervene and yet chose inaction. Such people should be laughed out of every room.
I thusly consider it necessary, for the continuation & renewal of this union, to become a new kind of Republican - one who is not a god damned fucking moron.
How, then, does one "be a Republican," if one merely believes in the necessity of a thoughtful & honest second party in a healthy political system?
Presently, I consider that this suggests, in situations where a decision must be made between popular power and elite or institutional power, and available information does not strongly indicate that one option or the other will lead to a better outcome, that a "theoretical Republican" support the authority of elites & institutions. Likewise, for an economic issue, if neither a market solution nor a governmental solution is strongly indicated to be superior, a "theoretical Republican" would support the market solution. In either case, if the data points strongly toward the superiority of a position contrary to the "party line", my "theoretical Republican" would support the position supported by the data.
That, then, will be my starting point. My dream is to see a "Party of Lincoln" which is not a stain on America. It will be a long road.
I don't agree with the Democratic party on every issue either. While the "Party of No" isn't good for much, I worry that Democrats have become the "Party of Yes" - too quick to support notions which gain rapid traction among progressive thought leaders & progressive influencers, without time for rational analysis, and too eager to take whatever positions conservatives find frightful, regardless of the facts.
My particular small grievances with Democrats I may in the future elucidate, but they are insignificant compared to my disagreements with the current mainstream of the Republican party, which I consider entirely off the rails, and in desperate need of new management.
The purpose of this blog is to document my ongoing attempts to engage local Republicans in discussions about their beliefs and about the purpose and mission of their party - that is, if I can find them.
The Republican Party of Jersey City seems to have little more than a barebones website and a facebook page that makes occasional holiday announcements, getting one or two comments. The Hudson County Republican Party doesn't even have a website. Neither appears to have regular meetings, or any space for constituent feedback beyond a webform for sending messages into the abyss.
So I'll be sending emails, making phone calls, and knocking on doors if need be. I want to have some debates! Democrats aren't any fun to argue with, they're all serious. I want to fight some clowns.
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Nebs Does Doom
Feb. 19th, 2017 at 2:22 AM
~I keep reading endless numbers of articles and essays about how Trump became president. And none of the them really seem to get it. Chris Hughes comes close, but he seems to have lost his mind. Can't blame him really, as everyone is dancing around the elephant in the room; we are in fact already IN Collapse, eg, The System is in Terminal Failure.
We are in Late Stage Capitalism. What that means is as the profit margins get narrower, The Owners need to squeeze harder to extract said profits. This has been going for a few decades now, but for the general public, the 'balloon went up' with the Crash of '09, which was the direct result of The Big Squeeze. Wall Street et al created a Housing Bubble of insane proportions via all manner of shady and even illegal marketing and accounting games.
When the shit hit the fan, they got their political lackeys to use Tax Payer Money to 'reimburse' them for their loses and left said Tax Payers out to dry. Roughly 40% of the American Middle Class Wealth was lost. FORTY PERCENT. That meant eroded tax bases, gutted pension funds, wrecked state and municipal bond portfolios.
That is what Obama inherited. And, being the Corporatist he is, he bunted economically. The perfect example is the ACA [which originated with The Heritage Foundation, a very right wing think tank]. He'd promised a Public Option over and over and over again on the campaign trail. Withing a month of his Inauguration, it had vanished, forcing thirty million Americans into the clutches of the Insurance Industry. [see The Big Squeeze]
Eight years later, after more and more of that kind of betrayal from the Democrats and the insane slavering obstructionism of the GOP, the American Electorate had come to hate the establishments of both parties. And two Insurgent candidates emerged from outside of each party; Bernie and The Donald.
We all know what happened. The 'undisciplined' Dems suddenly became Very Disciplined and sandbagged Bernie. And the infamously disciplined GOP fielded a slate of total buffoons and got its clock cleaned.
Even then, Hillary should have won. She did in fact 'win' The Vote. But her ground game sucked so badly [arrogance], and the Dems had alienated so much of their own base [more arrogance], she lost four states by roughly 120K votes in total.
And that boys and girls, is how Collapse works. The System becomes so rotten that a Black Swan like The Donald can end up in the White House. [EDIT: 5/5/22 At this point I made some noise about 'The Deep State gaming The System in order to fix the problem and do a reset' but they turned out to be fuckin' gutless and did fuck all, while The Owners, those traitorous scum, got their $1.4 trillion and so didn't give a fuck]
But we are still in Late Stage Capitalism and Collapse is still underway and no one has any real idea what to do about that ...except, of course, More Of The Same, which is a well known definition of insanity.
Toss the now inevitable Catastrophic Climate Change into the mix and one can be certain that the next century or so is going to be 'very interesting times' indeed.
You can kill yourself now if you wish....
2016 election,
bagger sociopaths,
capitalism,
class war,
climate change,
collapse,
culture war,
economic policy,
global financial trainwreck of 2007-2012,
income inequality,
mass democracy has failed,
nebs know these things,
the collapse of the republic
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stop shitting on biden. stop shitting on biden. stop shitting on biden. stop shitting on biden. stop shitting on biden.
i love bernie with my entire bleeding liberal heart but he DROPPED OUT. he endorsed biden. there is no realistic way in hell any other human beings will have a chance of winning the presidency of the united states besides biden or trump
now that that's settled, is there any blue/democrat/liberal/neo-liberal/moral-fucking-human-being who doesn't think trump is a worse candidate than biden in every way imaginable???
worse mental state? trump. worse politics? trump. worse experience? trump. worse criminal accusations? trump. worse prosecutions? trump.
i SWEAR TO GOD if we have another 4 years of this sexist, fascist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, islamaphobic, xenophobic, internment-camp-building, piss-poor-excuse-of-a-person because y'all are too butt hurt about our nominee not being bernie, you don't even get to think about the word "activist" falling off your tongue to describe you
should our election be choosing the lesser of two evils? fuck no, and let's demolish the system that created that. but, if while we're fighting to get the humane treatment of everyone who isn't white, cis, straight, male, and christian and you're actively bashing the alternative and seriously hurting his chance to get elected?? you're effectively the same as the people who vote for trump. idgaf what party you're in
be the change, suck it up, and let's do what what has to be done
#just#fuck#I'm so sick of it#no one likes biden#he's not a good choice#but there are two options and one of them is fucking donald trump#and y'all know his party members are getting out there and voting no matter what#you may not switch any voters to trump by spouting your biden hate#but you sure as hell are making our voters stay home#and that's all this nazi cheeto needs#end rant
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As a lefty liberal in a conservative Northeast Wisconsin redoubt, I took a far less knee-jerk approach to 9/11 than some of my neighbors. I experienced the pain, horror, and fear of that day like anyone else. Still, my instinct was always to reject half-baked, jingoistic calls for “nation-building” (to resurrect a term George W. Bush had derisively used himself during the 2000 presidential campaign) and for using military action as a first—rather than rarely tapped and last—resort.
The publication I was writing for doesn’t exist anymore (it’s hard to overstate how unpopular antiwar sentiment was back in the early 2000s), and I don’t have any copies of those old, dusty opinion pieces, but I do distinctly recall my conclusion about our foray into the infamous “graveyard of empires.” I wrote something along the lines of “it’s hard to imagine a thriving Western-style democracy coming out of all this.”
Given the cultural and political challenges inherent in creating the kind of free and open “nation” that Bush was then proposing we “build,” it looked, to some extent, like a lost cause from the beginning. An operation to locate and capture Osama bin Laden? Sure, I was on board for that, and as Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner writes in this important retrospective, we had more than one opportunity to nab bin Laden without turning Afghanistan into a perpetual graveyard.
So why were we invading? Good question. Was it because they wanted to run an oil pipeline through the country? Was it to boost the fortunes of military contractors, who would waste no time scurrying up to the money spigot the U.S. government was preparing to put on blast? Or was it simply that our leaders at the time had big, feral war boners for any nation populated by brown-skinned Muslims? Or maybe it was a, b, c, and then some.
Whatever the reason, I smelled a rat. It was similar to my reaction roughly a year and a half later when Bush and his war machine started agitating for an invasion of Iraq while furiously misleading a great nation about Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) connections to bin Laden. By that time, I was smelling several rats and maybe a sewer-dwelling capybara or two. Just as the war party had less-destructive options early on in Afghanistan (as Sumner notes, the Bush administration rejected a surrender offer from the Taliban as well as overtures that could have led to the capture of bin Laden himself), the invasion of Iraq seemed, at least to me, completely unnecessary given that the UN had inspectors on the ground in Iraq looking for WMD even as Bush champed at the bit to invade. They were so sure the WMD were there, and they were spectacularly wrong.
Now, with the collapse of the Afghan government, which we spent nearly 20 years propping up with considerable blood and treasure, it’s clear that I—and the vocal minority of antiwar protesters at the time—were right. Bush and his enablers, including many of today’s anti-Biden armchair quarterbacks, such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, were disastrously wrong. And, not for nothing, those pro-war cheerleaders cost us plenty in terms of lives, resources, and lost credibility.
There’s a lot that’s galling about conservatives’ reaction to the chaos we’ve seen in Afghanistan over the past several days. First and foremost, this was their hero Donald Trump’s plan all along, only he wanted to leave by Christmas and had established a May 1 deadline for the wholesale removal of our troops. The situation would have likely been worse under a second Trump regime, and even if things had somehow appeared less chaotic (given Trump’s allergy to planning and his affinity for chaos, this seems unlikely), it’s a preposterous fantasy to think the result—a complete Taliban takeover of the country—could have been avoided.
https://twitter.com/thetonymichaels/status/1427282625543217153
I assume President Biden received some bad intelligence concerning the Afghan military’s ability and willingness to confront the Taliban (this December 2019 Washington Post story about the clusterfuck that is was the U.S.-trained Afghan army should have given the Pentagon and our intelligence agencies pause, of course), but being the mensch he is, he’s taking full responsibility for this sad, disturbing denouement.
But blaming Biden—who, as Barack Obama’s vice president, wanted to get us out of Afghanistan in 2009—for 20 years of terrible decisions made by others seems a stretch.
Obviously, the pullout has not gone well, and Biden will, and perhaps should, receive criticism for that. But the idea that we were on the verge of turning things around in Afghanistan (like we supposedly were every year for the past 20) is nonsense.
Although I’ve become a big Biden fanboy over the past year, I initially second-guessed his decision to withdraw our troops completely. But if the past week has shown us anything, it’s that the Afghanistan project was always a pipe dream and an illusion. Yesterday, while I thought about the human rights repercussions of Biden’s decision, I felt like I needed a reality check. In his nationally televised speech to the nation, Biden provided it for me:
American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars.
We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong — incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.
We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force — something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.
I don’t have children, but I do have nieces and nephews, and I can’t imagine encouraging them to risk their lives and limbs for a mission that is and always was vaporware. Nor would I lay down my own life for such a venture. So how could I quibble with a commander in chief’s decision to prevent other Americans’ kids from dying or being maimed in a lost cause?
I couldn’t, and Joe Biden, whose own son may have died because of his deployment to Iraq, couldn’t either.
It was the same reason I couldn’t justify the invasion of Afghanistan 20 years ago and why our Iraq adventure seemed particularly noxious. Old men with no stake in these wars other than their own reputations and political fortunes were making life-and-death decisions on poor and middle-class kids’ behalf.
Anti-war activists were right then, and we’re right now. And no amount of Biden-bashing from the warmongers on the right will ever change that.
As satisfying as it might be to say “I told you so,” what we and the sometime doves in the GOP really need to say is “never again.” Biden deserves ample credit for finally getting us out of George W. Bush’s mess, and his hypocritical right-wing critics need to finally and forever STFU.
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Just $12.96 for the pack of 4! Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
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DR REN > DR FAUCI. MAKE HIM THE HEAD OF THE CORONAVIRUS CAMPAIGN PLZ.
okay im sorry but this is so fucking funny to me... for those of you who arent American or care about America (bc same), we are still suffering from covid-19 like we are a 3rd world country. BC PEOPLE ARE DUMBASSES AND SO IS OUR PRESIDENT! @ DONALD TRUMP. anywayyyy the surgeon general for America is Dr. Fauci and he is great and says that we should be wearing masks to protect one another and all that Jazz.
so obviously we should look to another trusted health professional.....
DOCTOR KYLO REN BBY.
“WEAR A MASK PEOPLE!”
“I don’t know why that's so hard to understand, what the fuck is wrong with you. I understand it’s hard to breathe, but there are health care professionals who wear medical grade masks for 14 hours during a surgery and they aren’t complaining. But you are because you have to wear one to Walmart? What, are you frustrated you can’t sneeze on the produce anymore? Huh?”
“No, it’s mandatory. That doesn’t mean it’s optional, that means if you don’t wear one don’t go outside! Which you shouldn’t be anyway, but that's not up to me. As the person medically in charge and ELECTED to be in charge of the common health of America, wear a goddamn mask or else I will come to your house an sew one onto your fucking face.”
“No, I won’t be answering questions.”
“Stop being an idiot and wear a mask.”
“Holy shit.”
-----
“Heyyyyy honey,” you cooed when Kylo came in through the garage door. Setting down your phone as you got off the couch, making sure to turn the volume down on the TV to make sure he can’t hear the news reporters talking about his unprofessionalism.
Kylo grunted as he came in, slamming his bag on the kitchen island. He walked to the sink, grabbing a clean rag and shoving it in his mouth. Letting out a feral scream through the cloth, even muffled it still made your ears ring from the pitch. You gave him a weak smile, tip-toeing to his side. Pulling the cloth from his mouth as you rubbed his cheek, “Did you hit anyone on the drive home?”
Kylo snorted, “No, but I fucking should have...” he ran a hand through his hair, “I do not understand people, why won’t they just listen to what I’m saying.” He slammed his fist into the nearest kitchen cabinet, punching a hole through the wood. You stood to his side, letting his take his anger out of the wood, you guys were going to remodel anyway.
He yanked the door off its hinge, slamming it down on his knee as he screamed again, “The fucking science is there! I don’t understand, I gave them all the research papers. Complete longitudinal studies about the exposure methods AND even showed how other countries following these rules were making great strides towards normalcy. But NO!”
“Uh-huh,” you patted his back, “Let it out.”
“If I even breathe about another country doing better, that makes me a communist. Which doesn’t even make sense, but me saying that the states should mandate a mask order is somehow against capitalism and freedom of choice, which makes me un-american.”
“I know sweetie.”
Kylo walked into the living room, stopping in front of the TV. His hands balled into fists as he stared at the silent reporters talking with an image of Kylo’s press conference in the back ground. He spun around, “Where’s the remote.”
You started shaking your head, “Honey I don’t think you need to listen to them-”
He raised a hand, “Where is the remote (Y/N).”
“I lost it,” you whispered, slowly backtracking down the hallway. Kylo’s footsteps gaining speed as you turned into the study, snatching the remote to his TV in there. Doging his large form blocking the doorway and booking it to the masterbedroom.
“Get back here! I want to hear what they are saying!”
“No!” you screeched, “It’s just going to upset you, and your blood pressure is already high!” You grabbed the one from your room, shoving it in your bra along with the other two. You paused, thinking about where the other TV’s were in the house.
A door slammed upstairs.
“Shit,” you whispered, booking it up the staircase to the lounge. Kylo already had the doors shut and you could hear furniture being moved to block the doorway. You banged on the frame, “Dammit Kylo, let me in!”
“No!”
You heard the volume raise on CNN, the voices of reporters arguing filling the room and seeping into the hallway. You kept banging your fists, wailing at him to stop and just breathe. “Kylo! You’re going to pop a blood vessel again! Just ignore them!”
A scream tore through the house, you were sure the security alarms were going to be set off from the vibrations. Followed by the sounds of a fist colliding with a TV screen, along with a string of curse words. You heard a window shatter, followed by more furniture moving.
You let out a deep breath, turning away from the lounge and heading down the stairs. Setting off for the laundry room where you keep your first aide supplies, medical grade, since your husband apparently is a medically licensed toddler. You waited at the kitchen island, setting out gauze and butterfly stitches supplies.
Slow steps came down the staircase, Kylo’s face downcast as he approached you from behind. Slowly scooting out a barstool with one of his feet and slumping down in the chair. He set his right hand in front of you, grumbling something under his breath. You sighed, accessing the damaged skin, “Feel better now?”
“No.”
“I tried to stop you.”
Kylo hissed as you applied an alcohol swab to his wounds, “I know.” He took a deep breath, “ I just don’t understand why they won’t listen to me, I’m literally the top doctor in the nation and they think I’m lying about the severity!”
You stayed quiet, just letting him vent.
“And now they are saying I’m untrustworthy because of my anger issues! I don’t have anger issues!”
You applied pressure to his hand, causing him to wince and meet your stare. “Sweetie, you broke another kitchen cabinet and TV and whatever else you broke upstairs. You also called the new’s reporters at the press conference ‘whiny asshats’ and threatened an entire country with bodily harm.”
Kylo chewed his cheek in thought, eyes now watching your handiwork. He mumbled a thank you as you finished with the first hand.
“Seems like I have some new issues to talk about in therapy then.”
#adam driver#adamdriver#kylo ren#surgeon kylo ren#i love surgeon kylo#he is your surgeon general#listen to him#wear a mask#covid-19#charlie barber#clyde logan#hippa violation
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Chlogami's Racism
I am usually not one to enter drama but because of the awful racism and attacks Asian Americans are currently facing in the US (anywhere in general) I feel like it's important for more people to talk about the racism that has sadly been seen in the fandom.
An artist by the name of Chlogami on Instagram drew two separate cartoons that show Chloe being racist towards Lila and Marinette. With the Lila comic, she assumes Lila's ethnicity is Mexican because of the color of her skin. And in the other comic, she is wearing a mask and spraying disinfective spray at Marinette.
With the recent terrorist attacks that happened in Atlanta, former US President Donald Trump addressing COVID 19 as the 'Chinese Virus', US citizens have taken upon themselves to brutally attack Asian Americans in the streets or leave hateful comments under their social medias blaming them for COVID 19. While I myself am not Asian, I do have relatives and friends who are Asian American so the mistreatment and racism that they are going through everyday is fucking heart breaking. No one deserves to ever go through that at all. So going back to Chlogami's post, showing a character being racist (when that is not even one of Chloe's characteristic nor will it ever be) towards an Asian character, it is nothing but extremely tone deaf and offensive. I can see she was trying to be cute but honestly, there is nothing cute about it. She has addressed and apologize but if she was really sorry then she would take down her comic because she is part of the growing problem.
In a world where children deserve to see themselves as heroes or people who look like them on tv in order to encourage them that they can be anything, using a favorite character to make fun of and ignore the current racism just shows the ignorance this artist truly has.
For the first time I will remove the anonymous option in my asks. Not to discourage anyone from speaking up but more to expose the ones defending this racist comic because I know there will be a few people who will try to defend this racist artist.
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65 Questions You Aren't Used To answered by ME
1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?
Sometimes, but it always goes away fairly quickly.
2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?
3, im not actively afraid of the dark itself but it can exacerbate paranoias
3. The person you would never want to meet?
The guy on reddit with like 100 different parasites he spreads to people around him
4. What is your favorite word?
Catgirl or Ghost maybe idk
5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?
Monterey Cypress
6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?
Oh my god my hair is so fucked, i look dead in the face too
7. What shirt are you wearing?
gray longesleev :)
8. What do you label yourself as?
gray-ace trans girl who is probably actually nonbinary but ignores that for the sake of simplicity
9. Bright room or dark room?
dark
10. What were you doing at midnight last night?
in a voice call watching my friend stream hl2: lost coast
11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?
19-20
12. Who told you they loved you last?
gf :)
13. Your worst enemy?
congress republicans
14. What is your current desktop picture?
I have 3, and currently all of them are on images of hatsune miku
15. Do you like someone?
mhm
16. The last song you listened to?
No Children - The Mountain Goats
17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?
Mitch McConnell
18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?
Donald Trump
19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?
A clone of myself, who i would make work on my portal mod lul
20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)
My hair perhaps
21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?
I dont know if this would make me male, female, or a trans man!
22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?
Getting people to like me when i want them to, i guess? It sounds manipulative but if you dont use it to manipulate people, and you dont always do it (because sometimes you dont want the person to like you), then is it?
23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?
I am afraid that my perception of other things is inaccurate and eventually i will realize that people around me regard me as someone who is very much detached from objective reality.
24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.
Crab+lobster mix, avocado, cheese, caramelized onions, bacon, sourdough bread, basil+a bit of garlic, and probably other stuff i cant think of.... oh and sunchips stuffed inside that i could pull out and eat.
25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?
Save it!!
26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?
California!
28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
1) If you die we eat you
29. What is your favorite expletive?
simply saying the word KILL!
30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?
My computer :( it would cause the most extreme impact to have it be destroyed. i would feel terrible about everything else though
31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
I’d rather not say.
32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!
sounds awful :(
33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?
My kitty :(
34. What was your last dream about?
I was playing a hidden level in Frogger: the Great Quest but then @ sleepysoul DM’d me to ask what my newest video was about cause she was weirded out by it, and i went to my youtube channel to find this bizarre video about crab-catching, which slowly descended into this video showing bizarre and cosmic horrors. For some reason i thought i uploaded it and tried to defend the video, but i could not explain it
35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?
I am a good 3d modeler, texturer, game mapper, and other things that have to do with digital 3d artstuff
36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?
no
37. Have you ever built a snowman?
yes
38. What is the color of your socks?
All of mine are tan or dark blue. super lame and boring
39. What type of music do you like?
Most currently, it fluctuates between “weirdcore” type aesthetic playlists of music, and anything Vocaloid.
40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?
Sunrises, because im usually not awake for them so they are extra special
41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?
strawberry maybe
43. Do you have any scars?
One on the side of my butt where i tore it open on the bathtub faucet, one on my elbow from a bike accident, and
44. What do you want to be when you graduate?
I dropped out :(
45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
my cheekbones and eyebrow ridge stick out so weirdly, id make it not look like that
46. Are you reliable?
on small things? yes. on big things? nope, not in the least.
47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?
Have you finally gotten out of this rut and found happiness and success?
48. Do you hold grudges?
i kinda do but try not to
49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?
Catgirl
51. Are you a good liar?
only when im not trying to.
52. How long could you go without talking?
consecutively, maybe a fourth of a day
53. What has been you worst haircut/style?
short.
54. Have you ever baked your own cake?
I’ve helped, but never done it myself!
55. Can you do any accents other than your own?
Oh, believe me, no. But i do it anyway because its objectively hilarious
56. What do you like on your toast?
Not beans.
57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?
Miku :) (it turned out so badly i scrapped it)
58. What would be you dream car?
Golden Leopard Print Golf Cart
59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.
I lie down as to not pass out (and cause warmn wotter....)
60. Do you believe in aliens?
[redacted]
61. Do you often read your horoscope?
never
62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?
E? (it has a nice synesthetic color)
63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?
Dinos
64. What do you think about babies?
gremlins. strange beings. they are very strange and creepy-ish but can be cute but RARELY. keep away.
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The Post Office is screwed so long as the trump appointed Louis Dejoy stays on as Postmaster General. There are supposed to be nine senate confirmed governors who pick a tenth member to serve as Postmaster General, but most of the seats have been vacant for years because George W. Bush was trying to kill the Post Office and Barack Obama didn't give enough of a shit to try and save it; Donald Trump took the opportunity to pack the board of governors with loyalists who then picked a Republican megadonor as the Postmaster General, ensuring the office's demise from within. There are only six governors on the nine governor panel right now, two Democratic and four Republican, so Joe Biden could tip the balance by filling the remaining seats and having the five Democrats vote to remove Dejoy and instate someone sensible, but classic Joe, he's not doing that. Instead of filling all three vacancies, he filled two, one Democrat and one Independent, so the Republicans have a 4-3-1 advantage; they're not gonna get rid of Dejoy any time soon, and Republicans in the Senate would block the final nomination anyway, preventing the Democrats from tying it up 4-4-1 or getting 5-4 if the independent swung their way. Sure, every other executive vacancy is exempt from the filibuster; Obama and Trump saw to that, but the Post Office still requires 60 votes for cloture. Democrats could invoke the nuclear option so Post Office governors only require 51 votes, but they won't, because that would be an actual solution, and Democrats don't solve problems. They like to hold problems over people's heads as a threat, then do nothing when they get back in power. Biden could transform the Post Office overnight, and he chooses not to because Democrats are afraid the Republicans will get mad at them over it; FUCK THE REPUBLICANS! They never give Democrats so much as half a thought when they're the ones in power, why the fuck should Democrats keep kowtowing to them?
#rant#post office#usps#united states postal service#postal service#postmaster general#fuck trump#fuck louis dejoy#louis dejoy#politics#political
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leviathan.naked_lesbian_makeout_blonde_sluts.mp3.mov.jpg.exe
On the one hand, yeah, definitely fuck Zuckernerd and Facebook, and the other tech empires.
On the other hand, it’s not like these are even the grossest examples of monopolies, with even larger and more insidious corporations given the green light to bloat even larger. The motive definitely isn’t to protect the consumer or to encourage competition.
I doubt it’s to make an example of Zuckerberg for accumulating such a hoard of wealth, either. Billionaires have become more stinking rich out of the pandemic, but Zuckerberg isn’t even the one that won the most.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has enjoyed the biggest bump in personal fortune, according to the analysis from Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, two left-leaning groups. Bezos' wealth has jumped by $90.1 billion, to $203.1 billion, from March 18 through October 13[...]
Other billionaires whose fortunes have risen during the pandemic include Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose wealth has jumped 20% to $118 billion since March, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with an 85% gain to $101.2 billion, the analysis found.
Facebook isn’t the only tech conglomerate to have an anti-trust suit brought against them. Amazon, Apple, and Google have all been hit with suits, ostensibly about unfair trade practices or similar accusations. More curious is how deeply in bed with the US government these corporations are, like Amazon’s partnership with the US Military, or Google’s collaborations with the government. Maybe a clue is hidden in the essay by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen:
In an era when the power of the individual and the group grows daily, those governments that ride the technological wave will clearly be best positioned to assert their influence and bring others into their orbits. And those that do not will find themselves at odds with their citizens.
The election of Biden is definitely the effort of The Establishment to put the Trump genie back in the bottle. His election was an undesired outcome, an anomaly in a system that they want to run regularly, and to produce regular, predictable results. The wealthy are wedded to the political system, have regular mechanisms and controls to manipulate and interact with it, and Trump leap-frogged the whole dog and pony show. But he didn’t do it alone.
So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected? I think the answer is yes, but not for the reasons anyone thinks. He didn’t get elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica. He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser. Period.
To be clear, I’m no fan of Trump. I donated the max to Hillary. After his election I wrote a post about Trump supporters that I’m told caused colleagues who had supported him to feel unsafe around me (I regret that post and deleted shortly after).
But Parscale and Trump just did unbelievable work. They weren’t running misinformation or hoaxes. They weren’t microtargeting or saying different things to different people. They just used the tools we had to show the right creative to each person. The use of custom audiences, video, ecommerce, and fresh creative remains the high water mark of digital ad campaigns in my opinion.
That brings me to the present moment, where we have maintained the same ad policies. It occurs to me that it very well may lead to the same result. As a committed liberal I find myself desperately wanting to pull any lever at my disposal to avoid the same result.
Google makes most of its money through advertising, and according to the NYT, “Google’s share of the search market in the United States is about 80 percent. “ Facebook is itself a monstrous social media entity, and owns two more of the largest SM platforms on the internet, Instagram and Snapchat, which:
Instagram: Active 1 Billion users
If your target demographic is under 35, Instagram is a gold mine: 63% of users are between the ages of 18 to 34, with virtually even split between male and female users.
Snapchat: Active monthly users 360 million
The most active users are Snapchat are 13-year-olds, and they’re spending upwards of 30 minutes a day on the app.
Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon, which apparently has 140 million users, who I would imagine also skew younger, and who watch on average an hour and a half of content on the website a day.
We do know, through Twitch Tracker, that the average number of concurrent viewers stood at 1.4 million over February 2020, with peak Twitch viewing figures just a shade shy of 4 million – a threshold exceeded during the coronavirus lockdown that followed.
This puts Twitch well ahead of many traditional media outlets. Indeed, by early 2018, Twitch was outstripping MNSBC and CNN in terms of peak concurrent viewership (885,000 and 783,000 respectively). Fox News and ESPN were logging 1.5 million at this point.
The bourgeoisie have many glaring blindspots, but they aren’t themselves blind, or altogether stupid. The Arab Spring showed them what connected populations could do, and social media platforms have been instrumental in coordinating and organizing resistance efforts in the US, as well as spreading uncomfortable and uncontrolled information that the government et al would rather not be known. I would be willing to bet that there were many government and corporate analysts looking at the numbers, reach, and growth of every video of a black man getting shot this past summer that lead to civil unrest.
None of this proves that the US government is angling to take over social media, but I think it’s notable that Twitter is already playing ball with censoring uncomfortable stories, and doesn’t appear to be getting hit with the same sort of lawsuits as its competitors, despite its own relative monopoly.
The bourgeoisie are increasingly running out of options. Unwilling or unable to actually win the votes of the electorate by making concessions and other broadly demanded and popular reforms, it must increasingly rely on propaganda campaigns and other manipulation in order to keep the charade of government and control functioning. I would posit that the very narrow defeat of Trump last month, in spite of four years of constant fear mongering and concerted efforts to demonize him on the part of the bourgeois media, the alliance between Republicans and Democrats, and the collusion of the governments various branches of intelligence services and secret police, was the last straw—if the internet is such a disruptive and unpredictable force, then it must either be controlled or destroyed.
#antitrust#trump#biden#amazon#google#apple company#internet#internet culture#social media#conspiracy#speculation#facebook#snapchat#instagram
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ProPublica gained access to the group after Lang sent an invitation to a reporter’s social media account. It’s unclear whether Lang knew he had invited a reporter, and the reporter joined but did not participate in the chats.
The group, created two days after the Jan. 6 attack, grew from a few dozen members to nearly 200 in just a week. There, safe from the deplatforming spree of mainstream social media giants like Facebook and Twitter, Lang set out to recruit “normies” and radicalize them to the point that they joined regional militia groups.
Lang’s conversations offer a window into how some of President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters — still simmering over baseless allegations of election fraud — are finding new connections on messaging platforms that are largely hidden from public scrutiny. Unlike sites such as Facebook, Telegram is a messaging app where users can create large, invitation-only and encrypted chat groups, and it allows users to remain anonymous by hiding their phone numbers from one another. Within days of the riots, more than 25 million users globally joined Telegram, the company’s CEO said, although the U.S. accounts for a fraction of its user base. A company spokesman did not respond to questions from ProPublica.
The chats also make clear that at least some of those involved in the Capitol insurrection, despite a sweeping crackdown by U.S. law enforcement that has resulted in more than 160 cases, appear dedicated to planning and participating in further violence.
“This has been one of my concerns shorter-term: That folks who are more fervent are seeking each other out in a way that can lead to some short-term, violent outbursts,” said Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer of sociology at Vanderbilt University who has studied militia activity for more than a decade. Homeland Security officials on Wednesday warned of heightened threats of violence across the country from domestic extremists who felt emboldened by the Jan. 6 attack.
The FBI referred questions of whether the government was aware of Lang’s activities to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which did not immediately return an inquiry seeking comment Wednesday.
ProPublica sifted through thousands of videos taken by Parler users to create an immersive, first-person view of the Capitol riot.
A lawyer for Lang, Steven Metcalf, said he was not aware of his client’s private social media messages, including the Telegram group. Metcalf said he planned to enter a not-guilty plea and to contend that Lang was exercising his First Amendment right to free speech on Jan. 6.
After Lang’s arrest, his father, Ned Lang, told the local newspaper, the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, New York, that his son had struggled with substance abuse. “As a result, he has had numerous issues with law enforcement over the past 11 years and it has only gotten worse, as is evidenced by his most recent arrest and actions at our nation’s Capitol!” Ned Lang said in an emailed statement to the newspaper. “We are praying for my son that he conquers his addictions and finds a new path forward in his life!” Ned Lang did not respond to messages from ProPublica seeking comment.
Jake Lang’s public social media accounts depict him as an internet-savvy serial entrepreneur, with one now-defunct Instagram account, @jakevape, chronicling hashtagged trips to Coachella, California, and to Art Basel in Miami. Public records show he had moved through various business ventures, from one selling vaporizers to another selling custom baseball hats. For a time, he ran Social Model Management, which promised to help prospective models get “social media famous” by unlocking “industry secrets” that would triple their Instagram followers.
More recent social media posts by Lang acknowledged his struggle to stay sober and a deepening interest in religion. In an Instagram post from last year, tagged “#ChristEnergy,” Lang set goals for himself to memorize the Hebrew alphabet and stay kosher.
After his participation in the Capitol insurrection, Lang seemingly turned his online audience-building skills to a new mission: On the evening of Jan. 8, he turned to Instagram to send a round of invitations to join his private Telegram group, appealing to “patriots” willing to act locally and nationally as an armed paramilitary.
When new members joined the group, he emphasized they should remain anonymous by hiding their phone numbers and changing their usernames to “@Patriot[name].” He urged members to avoid chitchat and any specifics about future actions. Some floated gatherings on Inauguration Day or a few days before in state capitals, although others warned that protests on those days could be a trap. Participants were told they’d be vetted “to make sure they are who they claim to be,” wrote user Silence DoGood, before they were added to their local group chats by regional leaders.
Lang repeatedly used photos and videos of himself from the Capitol insurrection to stress the importance of military-style organization in future attacks.
“A woman just died in this video being trampled by DC police because we aren’t organized as patriots,” Lang posted on Jan. 10, an apparent reference to Rosanne Boyland, who died in a stampede at the Capitol. “This was my carnal cry for the real men to step up and help.”
Replied one member, who went by the username Tony Bologna: “Damn brother! Amen.”
“It was the first battle of the Second American Revolution- make no mistakes,” Lang continued. “This is WAR.” He posted a code of conduct in the group, as well as a set of meme-like instructions for members to prepare for a national “blackout,” buying long-range walkie-talkies and stocking up on guns, ammo and food.
“It’s really happening huh?” asked another user, Alastair. Lang replied with a video attachment, again of himself outside of the Capitol: “Do not be afraid of these tyrants.”
Some of the chat’s new recruits referred to Lang in language borrowed from the military. When one new member asked who the group’s leader was, another replied: “GENERAL JAKE😈😈😈 Your soldiers are reporting for duty.”
One user, dubbed Nomad, appointed himself a regional organizer in western Michigan, while another volunteered to boost the group’s ranks in central Florida.
“This is grass roots,” wrote Patriot Captain RedorDead, who claimed to invite 20 prospective recruits from a local gym. “This is real.” Lang also encouraged recruiting at local gun shops.
He chastised members who veered into more social territory. “Guys please this is a MILITIA group to defend our country from communism - private message each other if you want to flirt. Only warning.”
While the idea was to organize a coherent strategy ahead of Jan. 20, when President Joe Biden would be sworn in, the group didn’t appear to coalesce around one. Lang offered few details: “The plan for now is to Martin Luther king style March on 17th and 20th, exercising our Rights (that means armed),” he wrote on Jan. 13. “Peace and God be the forefront of all of what we do. But we cannot not show up and appear weak! That is not an option.”
There’s no sign those in the chats took action on those days, but experts like Cooter warn against writing off their intentions as chatroom bluster. While most new online militia groups “are probably keyboard warriors and nothing more,” she cautioned, “we don't know that for sure, and I don’t think we can be complacent about a real risk from even a small minority of such groups.”
Experts have warned about the dangers of online echo chambers for years, but deplatforming may bring other risks, said Josh Pasek, a political science and communication and media professor at the University of Michigan. “The concern is much larger if the selection of which platforms people are using in the first place is itself more polarized. The chance that they make themselves far more extreme is high.”
He added: “The Capitol riot isn’t the end of much. What happens online can move offline. We’ve seen way too many examples of that to ignore it at this point.”
By Jan. 18, word of Lang’s arrest reached the Telegram group users.
“Seems as though the FEDs aren’t fucking around…” wrote one member.
“Omg @patriotjake !!!” Patriot Jetaime wrote.
Some members left, but others vowed to stick around. “I’m still going to stay in the group in case he comes back, which is unlikely, but we may have to continue where he left off,” Patriot Zoomer said.
“The group is still here,” added PatriotLos. “Being patriotic is a lifestyle. Everyone has the capability to lead so don’t get lost.”
ProPublica gained access to the group after Lang sent an invitation to a reporter’s social media account. It’s unclear whether Lang knew he had invited a reporter, and the reporter joined but did not participate in the chats.
The group, created two days after the Jan. 6 attack, grew from a few dozen members to nearly 200 in just a week. There, safe from the deplatforming spree of mainstream social media giants like Facebook and Twitter, Lang set out to recruit “normies” and radicalize them to the point that they joined regional militia groups.
Lang’s conversations offer a window into how some of President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters — still simmering over baseless allegations of election fraud — are finding new connections on messaging platforms that are largely hidden from public scrutiny. Unlike sites such as Facebook, Telegram is a messaging app where users can create large, invitation-only and encrypted chat groups, and it allows users to remain anonymous by hiding their phone numbers from one another. Within days of the riots, more than 25 million users globally joined Telegram, the company’s CEO said, although the U.S. accounts for a fraction of its user base. A company spokesman did not respond to questions from ProPublica.
The chats also make clear that at least some of those involved in the Capitol insurrection, despite a sweeping crackdown by U.S. law enforcement that has resulted in more than 160 cases, appear dedicated to planning and participating in further violence.
“This has been one of my concerns shorter-term: That folks who are more fervent are seeking each other out in a way that can lead to some short-term, violent outbursts,” said Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer of sociology at Vanderbilt University who has studied militia activity for more than a decade. Homeland Security officials on Wednesday warned of heightened threats of violence across the country from domestic extremists who felt emboldened by the Jan. 6 attack.
The FBI referred questions of whether the government was aware of Lang’s activities to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which did not immediately return an inquiry seeking comment Wednesday.
ProPublica sifted through thousands of videos taken by Parler users to create an immersive, first-person view of the Capitol riot.
A lawyer for Lang, Steven Metcalf, said he was not aware of his client’s private social media messages, including the Telegram group. Metcalf said he planned to enter a not-guilty plea and to contend that Lang was exercising his First Amendment right to free speech on Jan. 6.
After Lang’s arrest, his father, Ned Lang, told the local newspaper, the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, New York, that his son had struggled with substance abuse. “As a result, he has had numerous issues with law enforcement over the past 11 years and it has only gotten worse, as is evidenced by his most recent arrest and actions at our nation’s Capitol!” Ned Lang said in an emailed statement to the newspaper. “We are praying for my son that he conquers his addictions and finds a new path forward in his life!” Ned Lang did not respond to messages from ProPublica seeking comment.
Jake Lang’s public social media accounts depict him as an internet-savvy serial entrepreneur, with one now-defunct Instagram account, @jakevape, chronicling hashtagged trips to Coachella, California, and to Art Basel in Miami. Public records show he had moved through various business ventures, from one selling vaporizers to another selling custom baseball hats. For a time, he ran Social Model Management, which promised to help prospective models get “social media famous” by unlocking “industry secrets” that would triple their Instagram followers.
More recent social media posts by Lang acknowledged his struggle to stay sober and a deepening interest in religion. In an Instagram post from last year, tagged “#ChristEnergy,” Lang set goals for himself to memorize the Hebrew alphabet and stay kosher.
After his participation in the Capitol insurrection, Lang seemingly turned his online audience-building skills to a new mission: On the evening of Jan. 8, he turned to Instagram to send a round of invitations to join his private Telegram group, appealing to “patriots” willing to act locally and nationally as an armed paramilitary.
When new members joined the group, he emphasized they should remain anonymous by hiding their phone numbers and changing their usernames to “@Patriot[name].” He urged members to avoid chitchat and any specifics about future actions. Some floated gatherings on Inauguration Day or a few days before in state capitals, although others warned that protests on those days could be a trap. Participants were told they’d be vetted “to make sure they are who they claim to be,” wrote user Silence DoGood, before they were added to their local group chats by regional leaders.
Lang repeatedly used photos and videos of himself from the Capitol insurrection to stress the importance of military-style organization in future attacks.
“A woman just died in this video being trampled by DC police because we aren’t organized as patriots,” Lang posted on Jan. 10, an apparent reference to Rosanne Boyland, who died in a stampede at the Capitol. “This was my carnal cry for the real men to step up and help.”
Replied one member, who went by the username Tony Bologna: “Damn brother! Amen.”
“It was the first battle of the Second American Revolution- make no mistakes,” Lang continued. “This is WAR.” He posted a code of conduct in the group, as well as a set of meme-like instructions for members to prepare for a national “blackout,” buying long-range walkie-talkies and stocking up on guns, ammo and food.
“It’s really happening huh?” asked another user, Alastair. Lang replied with a video attachment, again of himself outside of the Capitol: “Do not be afraid of these tyrants.”
Some of the chat’s new recruits referred to Lang in language borrowed from the military. When one new member asked who the group’s leader was, another replied: “GENERAL JAKE😈😈😈 Your soldiers are reporting for duty.”
One user, dubbed Nomad, appointed himself a regional organizer in western Michigan, while another volunteered to boost the group’s ranks in central Florida.
“This is grass roots,” wrote Patriot Captain RedorDead, who claimed to invite 20 prospective recruits from a local gym. “This is real.” Lang also encouraged recruiting at local gun shops.
He chastised members who veered into more social territory. “Guys please this is a MILITIA group to defend our country from communism - private message each other if you want to flirt. Only warning.”
While the idea was to organize a coherent strategy ahead of Jan. 20, when President Joe Biden would be sworn in, the group didn’t appear to coalesce around one. Lang offered few details: “The plan for now is to Martin Luther king style March on 17th and 20th, exercising our Rights (that means armed),” he wrote on Jan. 13. “Peace and God be the forefront of all of what we do. But we cannot not show up and appear weak! That is not an option.”
There’s no sign those in the chats took action on those days, but experts like Cooter warn against writing off their intentions as chatroom bluster. While most new online militia groups “are probably keyboard warriors and nothing more,” she cautioned, “we don't know that for sure, and I don’t think we can be complacent about a real risk from even a small minority of such groups.”
Experts have warned about the dangers of online echo chambers for years, but deplatforming may bring other risks, said Josh Pasek, a political science and communication and media professor at the University of Michigan. “The concern is much larger if the selection of which platforms people are using in the first place is itself more polarized. The chance that they make themselves far more extreme is high.”
He added: “The Capitol riot isn’t the end of much. What happens online can move offline. We’ve seen way too many examples of that to ignore it at this point.”
By Jan. 18, word of Lang’s arrest reached the Telegram group users.
“Seems as though the FEDs aren’t fucking around…” wrote one member.
“Omg @patriotjake !!!” Patriot Jetaime wrote.
Some members left, but others vowed to stick around. “I’m still going to stay in the group in case he comes back, which is unlikely, but we may have to continue where he left off,” Patriot Zoomer said.
“The group is still here,” added PatriotLos. “Being patriotic is a lifestyle. Everyone has the capability to lead so don’t get lost.”
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american conservatism and the minds of people: a black man’s perspective.
Hi, it is I.
I often think long and hard about the mind states of the people around me, and my inevitable conclusion is that the vast majority of people are monumentally and irrevocably fucking stupid. As it turns out, people have a really hard time letting go of things with which they have grown familiar or fond, and therein lies the basic principle of conservative thought.
“But aren’t some things okay to keep?”
Well, obviously, not everything needs to be thrown out in order for improvement to occur. In the Army, we have things labelled “sustains” and “improves”. The two terms are pretty self-explanatory (as are most things in the military): sustains are the things that work, and the improves are the things you either completely nix or need to, erm, improve. Of course, this begs a question: as it relates to a society of living, (mostly) breathing human beings, how does this apply?
"Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water,” it is commonly said. I am not entirely sure who was throwing away bathing children, but that’s a discussion for a different time. The baby in this idiomatic expression is whatever it is we are supposed to be maintaining. Let’s start with an example: police.
Obviously, it is entirely infeasible to literally abolish police. We absolutely need the police force as an institution, and good and effective policing is a pillar to a modern, functional society. However, we can abolish unprofessional, unnecessarily violent, racist, or otherwise unbecoming behaviour from police departments, and also demonstrate that such things are intolerable and met with appropriate punishments every time these rules are broken. NWA didn’t make “Fuck The Police” because they wanted to express interest in having thoroughly arresting cop sex; it exists because they don’t trust the police.
youtube
Above: An Autistic Swedish dude spitting shockingly accurate commentary-by-proxy about American society. Flames!
Due possibly in part to dubiously worded slogans such as “defund the police”, modern conservatives balk at the thought of changing anything of significance about how policing in many communities in the United States is conducted, even going as far as to label the reform for which we call as an attack on the very idea of police.
That said, historically, the very pillars of police forces in the United States have their foundations in slavery and post-slavery racist institutions, which means that, while much has changed on the surface, the way police implement policy reflects structural and societal racism. As a result, simply attacking individual instances of misconduct will almost always fail to elicit any meaningful progress, which is why some do seek to dismantle police departments (an option I cannot fathom as being realistic, especially not in the short term).
The lack of a centralised police organisation from which to implement policy certainly does not help, and while some police departments, to include the Department of Justice itself, have introduced implicit bias training, it would appear that change was difficult to measure. Additionally, many police departments have not addressed the more overt problem of explicit racism in law enforcement, which is a nigh-impossible thing to tackle expeditiously without a top-down structure to deal with it. It has improved steadily overall, however, but not without significant disapproval...
Pictured: “disapproval”. A civil rights demonstrator is attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. (Photo credit: AP)
The Origins
As I noted earlier, there is plenty of shit people want to keep, and most for relatively understandable reasons -- after all, those things provide a sense of familiarity. “It’s always been this way -- why change it?” they ask. One needs only to look at our, um, flowery history to see countless examples of things that required change...
The transatlantic slave trade transported up to 12 million forcibly enslaved Africans to the Americas, many of whom arrived in what is now the United States. As unspeakably horrifying as the actual journey was, this was only the beginning of the tribulations that would befall the slaves and their descendants in the future.
While Europeans played a large part in introducing the idea of race-based caste systems into colonised lands, the American brand of discrimination is different in the fact that the idea that Blacks and Native Americans were genetically inferior to whites was endemic to our inception, and thus, formed the basis of the things enshrined into American democracy.
Photo credit: Alexander Gardner / Wikimedia Commons
Abraham Lincoln entered the chat.
Naturally, having someone even so much as threaten the idea of racial dominance after literal fucking centuries of treating Black people as property did not sit well with the slave-owning populace (even if Lincoln’s motives were not exactly altruistic). While the Southern states did in fact operate an agrarian economy heavily dependent on chattel slavery, it was that notion of superiority combined with societal comfort they felt that ultimately catalysed the secession of the Southern states from the Union...
Pictured: Civil War reenactors (from the Confederate side) simulate the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle in US history. Also, why the fuck is Civil War reenactment a popular thing to do? It’s deeply weird. (Photo credit: MPRNews.org)
...and then they decided to have the deadliest fucking war in American history over that comfort. Spoiler alert: the Confederates lost both the war and their precious bullshit institution of slavery -- but even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, many Southern slave owners did not even pass the news of freedom to their slaves for months.
In keeping with the preservationist and racist mindset which occupied most Southerners’ brains, any attempt to integrate Black people into society during the Reconstruction period was stymied at every turn. To them, despite Black people being de jure full citizens in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, we were still subhuman. Due to Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan terrorism, and other assorted nonsense, we made virtually no progress toward equality until the Civil Rights Movement and resulting laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
“Well, you got what you wanted! YOU’RE EQUAL! Quit yer bitchin’!”
Ah, if only things worked that way in real life. As previously noted, even if things are codified into law as changes, there are still people who try really hard to keep everything exactly the fucking same, so it does not end up happening in practice. Things such as residual effects of redlining and continuing disproportionate and excessive imprisonment of minorities, amongst other issues, still affect people in the present day. In other areas, people exploit loopholes in order to lawfully discriminate against others they might deem “undeserving”.
Lots of things, especially when it comes to role of minorities in society, have historical precedents. When arguing said precedents with conservative types, the conversation almost always leads to one of several (predictable) conclusions: the person believes that 1) negative historical events (e.g., slavery, Native American genocide, etc.) were not that bad; 2) those things did not happen at all; or 3) those things were bad, but somehow do not affect modern society.
Obviously, all three are emphatically wrong. This is why typical conservative behaviour, even in this modern era in which information sharing is instantaneous, does not surprise me: often, the rhetoric is not rooted in reality, and often resorts to appeals to emotions to elicit a knee-jerk response. This is not to say that this does not occur on liberal ends of the spectrum, but modern conservative rhetoric is rooted primarily in unjustified fear of change and anti-intellectualism.
Pictured: A screenshot I took of someone on a pro-President Biden post desperately trying to be oppressed.
This kind of shit is utterly exhausting. Neoconservatism, in a nutshell, is people literally inventing problems and subsequently getting angry at their own creations. It is the equivalent of setting up a bear trap, immediately stepping in it, and wondering why the fuck you’re stuck in said bear trap and your foot doesn’t work anymore. During the Obama administration, the only thing I would witness is people insisting (without any evidence, of course) that President Obama was the Antichrist and that he would usher in the New World Order and take everyone’s guns. All zero of those things happened, of course, but when Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the rhetoric completely reversed, and he was named “God’s chosen" by evangelical figures, despite him having broken perhaps all of the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments. Of course, as you can see with the above screenshot, clearly, they have returned to the Obama bitching method, but diminished, partially because President Biden is also an old, white male, and they don’t need to ask where he was born.
Pictured: what happens when you fuel millions of self-victimising people with QAnon conspiracy theories and possibly loads of Bang energy drinks. Photo credit: ABC News
The hypocrisy is absolutely palpable amongst these types of people, and if I tried to sit here and continued to provide examples of conservative figures contradicting themselves, I would die either of old age or myocardial infarction, whichever happened first. The difference in the reaction to Black Lives Matter protests versus the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 makes the double standard quite transparent: justice and equality, while technically codified into law, are clearly are not administered equally in modern-day America. We’re still not like the others.
Our brand of conservatism, by and large, is the enemy of those two very important American ideals.
|the kid|
#conservatism#conservative#liberal#Donald Trump#Joe Biden#President of the United States#creative writing#article#political ideology#critical thinking
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